Mary's Non-Negotiables for Success

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weidel and let's get started. My great friend from outside of north of Atlanta, Georgia, Mary Walker. Hello, Mary.

Hey, thank you, Larry. Carrollton, Georgia, coming to you about an hour west on I20.

Carrollton is west. Man, I got to get my Georgia geography dialed in there. All my Georgia relatives are going to give me the business. Okay, so is that God's country over there?

It definitely is. I didn't grow up here, but I've been here since I came in 67 to college and I love it better than any other place I've ever visited. I like to visit, but I always want to come home.

It's nothing like home going to hit. We're going to have a short, quick, rapid fire type thing here. At least that's my goal. I want to know off the top of your head, just a quick things, what are some. If I said what are some non negotiables, some things that you are not going to tolerate and you would, you'll, you'll fight to keep these things out of your life, out of your business, out of your thinking. What are some non negotiables? Just when I say that, what does that come in to your mind?

Yeah. Well, in my business life, I don't want anybody else coming in and trying to change my business that I've been in for 48 and a half, almost 49 years. You know, I'm a crusader when it comes to what we do in my business. And I want other people to realize that and know that I'm proud of that. I put my head on the pillow at night and I can go to sleep knowing that everything I've done during my career has helped make people's lives better. You know, I have produced a lot of financially independent people, both by them being clients of mine and by being in business with me. So I wouldn't ever want to change that. You know, I wouldn't let somebody come in who is not a good person if I could possibly help that out. I want somebody who thinks for the greater good, not for their own pocket, you know, and that, that happens a lot in business. I think you want somebody who heads up a company to not just have the bottom line in their heart and in their goal to reach. I want them to have the, to think about the people who work under them and treat people fairly. I would not put up with anything less than that. And I don't want anybody who works with me to feel any differently about me. Than that.

Now, when it comes to finances, what are non negotiables with you on finances?

I certainly, you know, I don't. I don't put up with anybody not taking care of their. Their bills, their finances. You know, whether you want to spend a lot or a little, it's up to you, you know, what you're bringing in each month, and you need to take care of that. I do know that people sometimes have to carry forward bills on credit cards, balances. I don't anymore. You know, I use credit cards, but I pay everything off at the end of the month.

I.

Because that's easier for me to keep up with, to do my accounting and my bookkeeping for taxes. But, you know, I remember one year in our business, I had to carry forward a $39,000 balance from a convention because I was somebody who never charged my people to come to anything other than I kept costs way down. And I would have to absorb some costs and maybe pay for some people who didn't have the money at the end. And I picked up that total form and I remember caring for a $39,000 credit card balance on American Express, which charges a horrible amount, like 22, 23% interest. But I had to do that back. And this has been a lot, a lot, a lot of years, but I had to do that, and I had to pay on that. It took me about eight or nine months, almost a year to be able to get that taken care of. But I knew that was something that I owned and I had to take care of it. So I expect people to take care of their debts. Now, does that mean everybody does know? But basically, how I feel about somebody is based on how they accept their responsibility for the things that they do in life. And I've had people, Larry, who have bankrupted on me before, and I still loved them. I try not to loan them any more money after that. But I've had figured out once we probably had close to a million dollars and money bankrupted on us before. But, you know, some of it. And I tell my folks this, if you're going to loan money to somebody, you need to be able to loan it knowing that if you don't get it back, it was just a gift and you can live with that, you know, so those are some of the things. I just want people to be financial responsible. I want them to teach that to their families and talk about that to any clients or people they talk to if they have a possibility of doing that. I think that's a big thing. In life, people got to be responsible for what they do in life and how they do it. I think people look at us all the time to make sure that we deal with life and the people out there that are doing business affairs with us and we take care of that.

Okay, I'm going to switch gears and go, what is the. Can you think of something that's like the worst advice you ever got or the worst idea you kind of got for yourself and what happened from it and what you learned?

I really can't think of anything. Somebody asked me once, what would you do? What would you do over in your life? And I said, well, I would have lost weight a little bit earlier in life. My husband, Randall, always thought I was beautiful, which is nuts, but he did, regardless of what I weighed. But if I had it to do over, I would have lost some weight before he died. I took some off afterwards. And hanging in here, I've never been terrible, but that's one of the things that I regretted. But beyond that, I really wouldn't change anything. Because I told you on another segment when we talked while back that, you know, you got to take. Take what you do and understand it brings you to where you are in life. I don't think, you know that I've ever made a bad, bad, horrible thing decision that I would have changed. Now, everything that I did didn't necessarily come out right, but I think at the time, the decisions that we made, Randall and I, in our business and our life, have been the right ones. You know, we just tried to. I was brought up in church. I was brought up to try to be nice to people and do the right thing. And, you know, I just don't have regrets of anything like that. Like I said, I've loaned money to people and maybe didn't get paid back, but I still would do it over if I had it to do over. I don't. And I'm not telling you that to say people should do that. I'm just saying you got to. You got to think about every decision. And that's one thing. A long time ago, Randall and I decided in our business, I said, we need. If it's a major thing, we got to talk it over. It's really important. I was a partner at the time, and then, you know, but I was not just the female or the husband, the wife person. I was a real partner in the business, too. So that we discussed everything, because two people together who are working toward the same goal have a lot better shot at getting what you're doing right, making the right decision. So we tried to not do snap decisions. We tried to think about things because you're talking about sometimes decisions that are going to affect not just your life, but others, too. So that said, I really can't think of a really bad decision. There might have been a motorhome that Randall bought once that was a bad decision on his part because I didn't speak to him for about two months because he bought it without running it by me first. I would have picked a different color. So we traded that thing. Really soon, you need to know.

Yeah, we would have gone further with this. If I were to say, what's the worst mistakes that Randall made? We probably wouldn't have time to cover it all, but I'd have to make a list. I have to make a list. But, yeah, Art Williams had this idea that, you know, you never make bad decisions. You always make the right decision based off the information that you're, you know, that you have at that time. And so you. You never, you know, you always want to be calling shots and moving forward, and all of that's good. But sometimes you have, you know, you got bad information that causes you to make the bad, you know, and a lot of these things are fed to us by people who have no idea what they're talking about. But. But they sound so stinking convincing that, you know, you swallow it and then, you know, you're belching it out. Twenty years later, you know, it's like, oh, I finally realized how stupid that idea really was. You know, what a half truth it was. Usually it's kind of true, but not really true, you know, and that's what we're trying to help people with on these calls. And so.

And Larry, let me say this too, you know, in that vein. I look at our business, the business I'm in, and then I think how it really applies to other businesses, too, if those businesses allow it. But, you know, I was a partner first, and a lot of businesses don't really want a husband or wife to have anything to do with the other person's part of the business or job. I thank goodness, was in a company that really allowed that. And, you know, Angela Williams was a partner who really set a good example of that for me and gave me. I'm sort of a. You know, just by listening to me, I'm sure you probably can tell I sort of like, take charge of stuff. And I get teased a lot for that. But, you know, Angela Williams gave me permission, so to speak, to be really involved and to speak up and to say, if I like it, I don't like it, or I think we ought to do this. And that carried over into our business so that we built everything together. And, you know, I think that's important because people know you gave your decisions some thought, you took it. You really. And it encourages other people to do the same. Because I really think having a partner in life that is involved in you making decisions, that. That can help a lot. I don't see that enough is said about that anymore and whatever business people are talking about. But I just think that people, People do a lot better whenever they have a sounding board, a good sounding board, somebody who's in it to win it. With you wanting to make sure that you're pursuing the same goals, that you want, the same outcomes, you got the same objectives in the future on building your business. I just think it's so important. And again, I had a person ask me once about. They were complaining a little about, you know, I've done all this stuff that Randall did, and I. I'm not as successful. And I said, well, Randall had something going for him that you didn't. And they said, what was that? I said, me, you know, let's talk about this.

In all businesses now, this is a real good thing to kind of wrap this up with the phenomena that very few is rarely talked about and very few people think about. And that is when you got a business and, you know, you have the. The spouse has got other, you know, kids at home, and you got other, other things happening. You know, if you're going to have a successful business of any kind, you're going to have to move your body. You know, you're going to go places, see people, do things, you're on the move. And what happens is it's so easy for business men and business women to leave the spouse behind. It's like, I'll go do it. You just, you know, I'm, I'm. I' the weight of this off, I'll go do it. And, you know, it'd be nice to have you with me, but, you know, you got. I don't want to create more stress with you at home. The thing is, that's dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. That's a bad idea. Because what happens is when you go to meetings, you meet people, you go through experiences, you go to dinners, you go to resorts, different restaurants, different towns, you get airplane, you see different things, your mind, you're changing, you're growing, you're developing, you're having interactions, you're meeting people, ideas are popping up that you never thought about, and you're growing. But if the spouse is back home, either dealing with the house, dealing with the kids, or dealing with their other job, and they're not growing in the same direction, you're growing. And this is why successful. This is one of the reasons why successful families wind up saying, we have nothing in common. You know, we've grown apart. And you can make a decision not to grow apart by doing things together. And that means traveling to events and spending everything you can to make sure that you grow together with these exposures and deal with the problems and sort through things and have wild things happen to you and encouraging things happen to you. But you grow together. You go through those experiences together to just like you go through things on the home front or in the home office and stuff. You want to say something about that?

Yeah. I really believe that's one of the keys to the business I'm in, is making sure you got partners involved. And I don't mean that partners just come and have a tea party kind of thing, but I mean involved, understanding what the goals are you're trying to achieve together because you're trying to do this stuff for your family. I mean, that's why all of us get into business and decide to do something. We want to change our family's lives and our circumstances. And I think that if you really focus on that, then you're going to have a better chance of having a great business. Randall and I always made sure that our kids knew what we were working toward. We both talked all the time about what we wanted, and that was important. You know, I could have said, you just do it, honey, and not me, and I wouldn't have been a part of this. I wouldn't have been in a position that I could take over and run the business. But as it was, our business felt the same. All the people in our business knew that if they spoke to me, it was the same as speaking to Randall, even though he. He was the name that they saw more. But I was always there. And, you know, I've been in other. I told you I was a schoolteacher. I can remember I was right out of college. I looked pretty good. And man, when they had a school trip, they sent all the cute young teachers off with the older guys down on these states, away trips that we had to go on. And I remember thinking, that really stinks. You know, this whole setup is not so good. And I saw things I didn't like, same thing when I, my very first job, I was still in college was at Southwire and you weren't really allowed to take a personal phone call. And I couldn't take. I was a junior in college and I just got married and I wanted to answer that phone and say Mary Walker instead of my maiden name, you know, but I wasn't allowed to do that. And then another time in our business, we were on a trip to Amelia Island, Florida, and we were riding around in the afternoon. We just had a couple of three hours meetings. And of course, partners were invited and supposed to be there if they possibly could. And we were given the whole afternoon and evening off. And we were on one of the little shuttle buses and we were on there with, there were about six or eight guys and one woman. And they were with this other company that was having a little conference down there. And they were all talking about what they were going to do. They were going back to one of the rooms and play cards and drink and do stuff. And I'm thinking, you know, none of their wives, none of their partners were with them. Not the guy with the woman, not her husband and not the others. And I thought, this is really, really a bad thing that the rest of the world seems to set out as the norm whenever you're having business meetings. And that's when it hit me how great it was that we were in a company that encouraged the partners to be part of it. And, you know, I just think a lot of times it's up to the person who's actually in a business to make sure their partner knows you're welcome. And if it had been me, whether I was made welcome or not, I'd probably butted my nose in anyway because I felt like it was my business too, because we're talking about our family. But I think that is so dadgum important. You know, we are in a people business. And Larry, I don't mean to knock guys, but I think women do better with people and drawing them in and making them feel at home and feel comfortable in a business situation or whatever than men do as a rule, you know, And I just think, you know, people want to know somebody believes in them. And maybe, maybe I think that's the thing I do really well is I make people know I believe in them and I'm trying to help them believe in themselves, you know, also, you know, they want to be made feel special. And I think that's what I do. That's what I bring to this business. I think I try to make somebody understand how special they are, how awesome they are, and how I do believe I can help them dream again.

And what they can get, there's no question. And the point about this is make the effort. If it makes sense to you, you say I can't figure out whatever. No, figure it out. You know, make sure you're on the same page. Make sure you, you make the decisions that allow you to go through it together. Because the great thing that you get from business success, success is never guaranteed or never guaranteed to be permanent. And we're seeing that in today's economy. And there's a lot of people that are suicidal because all of a sudden their jobs or business is no longer relevant. But the thing is this. If you grow and the one thing you'll take into the future, either your current business or another business is yourself. And if you're constantly developing new skills, new ability to handle situation, better discipline, you know, better problem solving abilities, well, what happens is you, you, you got that with you for the rest of your life. And if the same thing is happening to your spouse, I mean, you becoming more formidable as a couple as you go. And it was an important point. You said there, you made, you said you made sure the kids understood why you were doing what you were doing. So in case they had to make some sacrifices along the way where maybe you weren't there as much as they'd like or whatever that then they would understand and they, they, you know, they would have the perspective, they would have the context to know this is going to pay off for me. And so thanks so much, Mary. I think we've covered some great things. I know I've enjoyed it and looking forward to seen in the future and hopefully doing this again because I get the feeling your business is getting ready to make some real explosive leaps forward. We didn't tell everybody, but you're all over the United States and Canada and lots of Canadian offices and provinces and million dollar earners and things like that so very.

Go ahead, we're excited. And hey, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you asking me, giving me this opportunity to chime in a little bit today. So thank you so much.

Fantastic. And we'll be looking forward to doing this again down the road. Thanks so much, Mary. Goodbye.

Bye. Thanks.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind with me, Larry Wydell. If I've helped you in any way, leave us a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts. For more information like this, listen to our other million Dollar Mastermind episodes. And check out my Widel Academy YouTube channel. And visit us on widel on winning.com I'm the million Dollar Mastermind. And until next time.

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